Sais decision approves, with small adjustments and revisions, a draft issued and set for public consultation in August 2016, against which objections and reservations have publicly been expressed by Savegreekwater, as well as several other interested parties.

Through this Decision (nr. 135275, GG Β1751) water services users will be from now on burdened with paying the so called Recovery Costs of said services. Water has become a commodity, while water services companies will not differ anymore to any private profit-oriented and money-grabbing enterprise, despite them being constitutionally considered public services.

Specifically: the pricing of water services, contrary to the stipulations of Decision 1906/2014 of the Council of State, will aim to covering all costs of the company providing these (art. 9.1). Such pricing will include following items:

A’ Financial Cost (art. 4 and Annex Ι): this will include the cost of the invested capital, based on the annual depreciation of the provider’s assets; alternative use cost based on the profits the invested capital would yield if used for other purposes; operation cost, based on both standard and extraordinary operation expenses; maintenance cost; and management cost which includes the fees of any third parties. If water has to be transported to an arid area the users will be burdened with the extra cost, unless a state subsidy is available. All this leads to water services users in Greece being asked not only to pay once more for water services infrastructures and network, which have been paid through taxation both by this and several previous generations (this has happened several times in the near past) but also to cover any sums a water company will claim (with hindsight) as loss of profit for having its capital used to supply water instead of having been invested in some other “profitable” activity. That such activities may include absolutely anything has been proved by EYDAP’s contribution to last year’s capital  increase of Attica Bank: this led to EYDAP losing € 17 million out of 20. As an addition the financial cost includes a “reasonable return” of private funds invested with EYDAP and/or EYATh: for the nth time the Greek Government interprets private enterprise as state guaranteed profits.

B’ Environmental cost (art. 5 and Annex ΙΙ), which, among others, will be imposed also on the occasion of a negative chemical condition of subterranean water deposits due to non-natural (sic) causes. Everyone knows of the Government of Greece being hesitant to impose fines on polluting businesses, but someone has to pay the cost, and the users of water services may prove an easy target.

C’ Resource cost (art. 6 and Annex ΙΙΙ) which includes costs incurred due to the bad management of water resources. No penalty for those responsible for such bad management is imposed. The environmental cost and the resource cost added up (art. 7) will constitute the Environmental Fees: such shall be written “clearly and explicitly” on the bill (as are the fees paid by energy users for similar reasons and ending up becoming subsidies to private businesses) and will be transferred, almost in its entirety, to the infamous Green Fund with the aim of being used, under quite general terms, in actions dealing with water. Vulnerable groups may be excluded from paying said environmental fees as are those entities that “through correct management of water resources contribute to the maintenance and/or improvement of the condition of such; these include enterprises dealing with waste re-use (there is a quite small number of such businesses in Greece, all belonging –directly or indirectly- to the richest 0,1%; q.e.d.)

Art. 9 (General pricing procedures) provides for an increase on bills if costs’ cut down does not by itself suffice for covering costs recovery. In order to convince the users that such increases will not be excessive it is stated that such cannot be higher than the GDP increase, or can be as high as double the GDP increase in certain cases (as if GDP fluctuations had anything to do with our personal income!)

Art. 14, titled “General Rules and Directions for the Improvement of Water Services”, actually lists conditions under which increases in water prices can be imposed.

As per the above this Decision proves that the negative results of water services privatization cannot only be reached through the transfer of water companies shares to private entities but can also be achieved by a State that long ago has stopped caring for the interests of its people preferring rather to protect and increase the profits of a small minority.

In addition there is recent Law 4472/2017 dealing (once more) with the transfer to the new Superfund of assets of the Greek State, among which the shares of EYDAP and EYATh: this law continues on the path of applying policies that have continuously been proved to be disastrous for the vast majority of the inhabitants of this country by targeting in general our economic and social well being and in particular our/everyone’s Right to Water.

This decision has been approved by ministers Panagiotis Skourletis (Interior), Dimos Papadimitriou (Economy and Progress), Eukleides Tsakalotos (Finances), Andreas Xanthos (Health), Christos Spirtzis (Infrastructures and Transport) and Evangelos Apostolou (Agriculture & Food) and (Deputy Minister of Environment and Power)

Case was scheduled to be heard at 9 a.m. on Monday 2^nd January. Court procedures in Greece are open to everyone, but when we tried to enter the building we were intercepted by the police. When councilor Theodoropoulos, an Athens lawyer acting on behalf of the plaintiffs, asked the Judge why people were not allowed to attend he received the answer that the Judge had not given such an order! If not he, then who gave it? We did not find out!

We waited outside the building in low temperatures: obviously public attendance of Court sessions (whatsmore in cases that have a strong impact on public interests, as is the giving away of € 40 m. of EYDAP’s reserves) is not a priority in today’s Greece.

The case was heard in the presence of EYDAP’s Head of Legal Services and a private practicing lawyer (despite EYDAP having its own such Service), a representative of Piraeus Bank (responsible for the transfer of the sums to the shareholders) and representatives of the Greek State and HRADF.

We were told that the decision would be made public at 12 noon: instead we waited until well past 1430 to hear that Injunction has been denied. The case (on which the petition for injunction was based) will be heard on March 20^th, which means that the shareholders will most probably have received their dividends by then.

The text of the Petition can be found in Greek at the SEKES webpage.

(Photos and videos are available in the greek version of this post).

Lots of Greek households (much more than in the past) are unable to pay their water and sewerage bills: state owned and run EYDAP has cut water supply to many of these, thus denying them their human right to water (as recognized by the UN Assembly). EYDAP, instead of supporting such clients decided to give its shareholders a Christmas gift of € 40 m. One of the beneficiaries is the infamous John Paulson, a billionaire that may be (co)-responsible for the real-estate bubble in the US.

At the shareholders meeting George Sinioris, president of OME – EYDAP (EYDAP Federation of Employees’ Unions), explained why and how such an action may prove destructive for the company’s investment program and its financial independence; he also pleaded that EYDAP should act in a more humanitarian and socially-oriented way, which, constitutes its statutory obligation. The shareholders denied any discussion on the issue. The shareholders also refrained from voting on an alternate use of this sum, submitted by SEKES, which (use) would allow both the unhindered continuation of the company’s investment programme as well as the subsidizing of those clients who, because of the crisis raging in Greece during the last eight years, are unable pay their bills. In addition, SEKES proposal asked for the re-establishment of public faucets, that existed some time ago but are nowadays nowhere to be seen.

The shareholders’ meeting took place in the premises of the Athens Stock Market (instead of the EYDAP premises), that were surrounded by several platoons of Riot-Police, arrayed there in order to deny entrance to workers and citizens (among them members of SAVEGREEKWATER) that, despite the strong cold, had gathered there to protest against this evaporation of € 40 m. of, actually if not formally, public money. Despite the cold and the rain the police denied entrance even to the yard to anyone not allowed to the meeting.

The shareholders’ decision acts definitely against the public interest and proves that EYDAP has already actually become a prey for those wishing to obtain swift and guaranteed profits, even before its management gets transferred to HCAP as it has been voted in September 30 2016..

Giving away € 40 m., after having lost another € 17 m. through a so called investment in Attica Bank’s capital increase (€ 20 m. of the EYDAP reserves have been thrown away to this purpose) is a strong reason why public control of EYDAP (and of course all other public services institutions) is long due. Such profit-only oriented management of public services companies, that has been condemned through Decision 1906/2014 of the Greek Council of State, is only one item in a long list of actions and omissions by the Greek Governments and other state services and institutions that have led to Human Rights having become a phrase without any meaning in today’s Greece.

We demand that every competent authority (from the Greek Prime Minister down) make public any and all items, discussions and resolutions that can throw a light on how such decision was decided upon and also whether it constitutes one of the obligations undertaken to Greece’s creditors. Greek citizens have the right to know and comment upon any decision taken on their behalf: decisions reached behind closed doors have no place in a country that calls itself democratic.

We stay, of course, completely and absolutely against the above shareholders’ decision: as citizens of an EU country and as users of EYDAP’s services we will continue our campaign for Water to become, formally and actually, a human right and a public good whose management is subject to the citizens’ control.

SAVEGREEKWATER – a Citizens’ Initiative for the Non-Privatization of Water

This is what is the article:

 It is well known now that EYDAP and EYATH assets have been and are to be transferred to the Superfund:  accordingly the water of the two major urban centers of the country is in danger of becoming prey in the clutches of “water barons”. Obviously, by controlling water services a greater degree of dependency, impoverishment and actual enslavement of people can be achieved.

But what is exactly happening with the waters in Greece outside the two major urban centres?

Water services in the provinces  are run by municipal enterprises, known by the general acronym DEYA. These enterprises are of contributory, self-funded character and are supervised by the corresponding municipalities of their regions of operations. DEYA enterprises were established in 1980, in order to take responsibility of water supply and sewage in remote regions off the central government; their role in local communities has been proved particularly important. They operated as pillars of the development of the aforementioned regions, by the employment (at an astonishing – 95% – absorption rate) of large funds from European investment programs. They also contributed significantly to the environmental protection, by the installation and operation of 250 wastewater treatment facilities. They are responsible for water supply and sewage of distant, sparsely populated, poor areas, ignoring the cost-benefit balance. They are, also, structures that defend public health by ensuring water supplies of excellent characteristics. Overall, they are local enterprises with a humanitarian attitude, having institutionalized social tariffs for vulnerable groups, thus ensuring for them the right to life. As the type of water management (tariffs – quality – social policy) which the mayors adopt can be a crucial factor for their re-election, there exists always a social control which can enforce democracy to the management.  Finally, they are small or medium sized businesses (132 in total, employing 4500 workers), which provide water and sewage to the most beautiful locations of Greece, by protecting their natural wealth, as well as the largest water reserves in the country.

In the post-memoranda Greece of the last six years, the DEYA enterprises have been devalued, under the pretext of limiting fiscal deficit. Nowadays they are becoming under staffed, sold by the day, piece-by-piece at the same time outsourcing important services to private contractors (as for example water treatment facilities, breakdown recovery services, water consumption measurements services, accounting). Due to this costs rise while the quality of services decays.

What is more important (and dangerous) is that due to recent policies an enterprise can be declared unsustainable if it presents negative balance sheets in three continuous years: in such a case a simple majority of the municipal council suffices for the transfer of the enterprise even without compensation. The question reasonably arises how long will a DEYA be sustainable, when operating exclusively with contractors? Should DEYA stop the water and sewage services to distant, sparsely populated villages, as such services are definitely not profitable? Will the privatization of EYDAP work as a Trojan horse for further privatization of the DEYA enterprises? Of course DEYAs are not financially dependent on the State/Central Government therefore they do not, in any way whatsoever, contribute to the public debt; they are financed by citizens and therefore they belong to them; however they are equally restricted in (actually barred from) recruiting any new personnel, which means that over time their already limited resources will reach zero.

What is not known in urban centers is that, on the pretext of water resources protection, all traditional and modern wells in the province, even handheld pumps of house yards (under the threat of 2000 euro fine) have to be filed with the central authorities. Rainwater storage tanks kept by farmers have been banned. Farmers are mandated to install water meters in line shafts’ sections of their fields.

The imposition of the environmental fee which will apply from 2017 and on (on the pretext of “protection of water resources”),will apply to urban-, rural-, and any other water use that can be priced, therefore be bought and sold, or disposed for a price.

As a conclusion I think we should all realize the dangers looming over the waters of the whole country (urban, rural, water resources) and form a common front of resistance to that. United and determined to oppose global capitals, for which human life has no value.

Because, fighting for water is a struggle for life and democracy.

Stavroula Symeonidou

Board Member of the Pan-hellenic Federation of DEYA Workers

President of the Union of Workers at DEYA of the City of Drama

Introduction: A Human Right to Water and Sanitation Toolkit for Global Water Justice Activists

By Meera Karunananthan

The global water justice movement has distinguished itself from conservationist organizations and traditional human rights advocacy groups by focusing on systemic injustices related to the use, distribution and control of freshwater supplies. Global water justice groups are not only concerned with access to drinking water and sanitation services, but also with the questions of who controls and owns our water, who defines policies related to freshwater and how priorities are determined when it comes to access. They have challenged the ways in which the neoliberal economic model has sought to answer these questions, calling instead for a water justice approach based on common ownership, collective control, equitable access and sustainable use to preserve healthy watersheds for future generations.

Over the past two decades the struggle for water justice has been linked with campaigns for formal recognition of the human right to water and sanitation, which has prompted some debate about the value of human rights instruments in addressing root causes of injustices arising from free-market policies.

This project is an attempt to bridge the gaps between human-rights based campaigns and water justice ethics by demonstrating how human rights campaigns can effectively challenge neoliberal policies pertaining to the control, use and distribution of freshwater. It is the result of discussions between grassroots activists, water justice organizations and legal scholars to provide information that would support the creation of human rights to water and sanitation policies. It is our hope that these policies will empower frontline communities and grassroots groups in their efforts to stop the corporate takeover of water, whether in the form of privatization of water and sanitation services, the use of lakes and rivers as dumpsites for extractive industries, or over-extraction by beverage companies.

Not only does this set of educational tools provide information to support campaigns for universal access to sufficient, safe, affordable, accessible and acceptable drinking water and sanitation services, it recognizes that that the protection of watersheds for future generations, the equitable distribution and democratic control of scarce freshwater supplies and essential services are integral to the achievement of universal access. The resources contained in this toolkit acknowledge and aim to challenge the threats posed by the neoliberal economic model to the full and universal realization of the human rights to water and sanitation.

The resources contained in this guide are drawn from successful local and national campaigns to articulate a vision for the human right to water that will empower local communities to defend their rights to water and sanitation against the growing threats of neoliberalization through austerity measures, development loan conditions, trade agreements and investment treaties.

They include:

1. A Water Justice Vision for the Normative Content and Principles of the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation:
   This section draws from international examples and case law to demonstrate how the normative content and principles of the human right to water and sanitation can support campaigns for equitable access, sustainable use and collective control.

2. The Freshwater Commons and the Public Trust Doctrine
   This report explains how an important principle existing within various legal systems can support campaigns to enshrine elements of the human rights to water and sanitation

3. The Uruguayan Model: Protecting the human right to water and sanitation by banning privatization
   Given the growing list of human rights violations resulting from the privatization of water and sanitation services, this portion of the toolkit draws on the Uruguayan example to argue that the human rights to water and sanitation can be codified in a manner that prohibits private sector participation

4. Fighting the Dispossession of Peasants and Rural Communities
   This section draws from key policy initiatives and the local and international level to expand the definition and applications of the human rights to water and sanitation to include access to water for food production, public participation in decision-making and healthy environments through collective control of freshwater supplies, to fight the marginalization of rural communities.

Contributors to the Water Policy module

Meera Karunananthan is the international water campaigner for the Blue Planet Project. The Blue Planet Project is an international project that works with communities and organizations around the world to defend the water commons and promote the human rights to water and sanitation. Meera completed a Master’s thesis examining the corporate appropriation of right to water discourse and its impact on public policy and is currently pursuing a PhD in geography at the University of Ottawa.

Luis Francisco López Guzmán is an environmental lawyer with a master’s degree in environmental law. He is a PhD candidate currently working as the Director of Health Regulation and Legislation in the Ministry of Health and is affiliated with the Salvadoran environmental NGO UNES. He previously served as head of the policy team responsible for drafting El Salvador’s General Water Bill, the Legal framework on Continental Waters and Aquifers, the constitutional reform on the Human Right to Water and the Treaty on Integrated and Sustainable Water Resource Management dealing with transboundary waters shared by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Adriana Marquisio is the Head of the Department of international and national solidarity at Urguay’s public water utility, OSE. As a fourth generation water worker in her family, Adriana Marquisio has worked at OSE since 1984. She is a co-founder of the Uruguayan water justice network (Comisión en Defensa del Agua y la Vida) and a co-founder of the water justice network of the Americas, la Red Vida. She served as Vice-President of the water workers union, FFOSE from 2003 to 2005 and Vice-President of Federation of public workers from 2009 to 2011. She has been involved in several global water justice initiatives including the Platform for public-public and public-community partnerships and the Blue October initiative.

James Olson is a Michigan-based lawyer who has represented citizens and communities in cases involving public trust, water and other environmental issues. He is the founder and President of FLOW (Flow for Love of Water), a Great Lakes Water Policy Center. He has written books and articles, and lectured widely on environmental, land use, water, and public trust law for over 40 years. He also teaches at the Great Lakes Water Studies Institute, Northwestern Michigan College. He has appeared in the films “FLOW For Love of Water” and “Blue Gold.” He has received many awards, including Michigan Lawyers’ Weekly Lawyer of the Year and the State Bar of Michigan Champion of Justice.

Robert Ramsay is the Senior Research Officer for the Municipal Sector at the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Ottawa. Prior to this, he worked in research, collective bargaining, and campaigns at the Canadian Association of University Teachers. Robert has graduate degrees in Urban Geography and Communications. He has worked internationally in labour and education, and remains active in social justice work both in Canada and in his native United States.

Britton Schwartz is a clinical fellow and supervising attorney at the Berkeley Law Environmental Law Clinic. The clinic engages students in policymaking, litigation and legislation related to local and global environmental issues with a particular focus on the overlap between environmental protection and social justice. Prior to joining the clinic, Britton helped develop and run the International Human Rights Clinic at Santa Clara University’s School of Law. Her work has focused on environmental justice challenges facing low-income and homeless communities of color and indigenous peoples in the United States and Latin America, with an emphasis on the human rights to water and sanitation.

Great  news from Barcelona! For the first time, a large majority of the Barcelona City Council supports ending the private management of water in the city. Barcelona En Comú believes that water is a human right, a basic service and a common good that should be under public, democratic control. Barcelona En Comú’s motion to remunicipalize the city’s water service has been supported by an absolute majority of the City Council

On Friday, November 25th, Barcelona En Comu presented a motion to take back direct public management of the water cycle, one of the main promises of our manifesto. This proposal was also one of the most popular among citizens in the participatory process carried out to define the Municipal Action Plan (the plan that guides city policy).

All the leftist groups of the Barcelona City Council voted in favor of the motion, meaning that the government can move forward with its plan to remunicipalize the water service in the metropolitan area. The water service is currently in the hands of the mixed society that controls distribution in the 23 municipalities of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB), of which Agbar is the majority shareholder. The council also approved a similar motion by the CUP Barcelona.

Eloi Badia, Councilor for Presidency, Water and Energy, said that “today an absolute majority has voted more transparency, higher service quality, and lower tariffs. Today is a historic moment because a majority of the council has said that things must change.”

Savings for the city and savings for citizens

According to data from the Court of Auditors, public management is 18% cheaper and results in losses that are 23% lower and investments that are 18% higher. A comparison of water tariffs in Catalan municipalities indicates that private management is 25% more expensive than public management.

These savings would obviously mean a reduction in tariffs. Badia has said that water bills could be reduced by at least 10%, 38.7 million euros in total. 29M € could be saved from industry profits and 9.7M € from the knowledge levy. “The best social rate is one that does not include unnecessary expenses. We must respond to neighbors who can not face bills that have risen 85% in the last 10 years,” he added.

This process is based on precedents in large cities such as Paris, Berlin and Naples that have demonstrated the advantages of having a service under 100% public management, as well as in Catalan towns such as Arenys de Munt and Montornès del Vallès.

This is the beginning of a path that can be long and complex. Barcelona En Comú will continue to work for public services and the common good of all citizens.

The article that was added to the Constitution is the following:

Article 70a (Right to drinking water)
Everyone has the right to drinking water.
Water sources are public good managed by the state.
Water resources serve primarily as the sustainable supply of drinking water and water for households and in this part are not treated as a commodity that can be traded with.
Drinking water supplied to the public and to households is provided by the state through local communities direct and non-profit.

“From the 30th January 2016 to 11th March, we have collected a list of more than 51,000 signatures in support of having the inalienable right to water written into the Constitution. We handed this list to the National Assembly on 11th March. Our Citizens initiative therefore has to this date the backing of almost 3 percent of the voting population. Even after handing in the petition signatures, we have continued our efforts by working on a positive pressure and discussing the matter with water and legal professionals. We have also engaged public authorities covering the area of water, political parties and representatives of citizen initiatives in an open discussion. The objective of our actions was to be clearly written into the Constitution that water and water land is a natural public good, over which no-one can acquire ownership rights; that everyone has the right to drinking water; that the water supply of the population cannot be owned by private companies in any legal-formal way, and that the provision of the water supply to the public is a service which should not generate profit and that the water supply of the population has the absolute precedence over economic exploitation in the case of the water crisis or drought or other crises, and that the water resources be managed sustainably, with thoughts on our posterity.By written down unalienable right to drinking water into the Constitution we are thinking about the future in the present, we will show Europe and the world that Slovenian drinking water is a public good that cannot and will not be privatized and should permanently and primarily be used to supply the population (and animals) and only after that for economic purposes in Slovenia and export purposes, provided the water supply allows for it” writes the announcement by the activists of “Civil initiative For Slovenia and freedom, Water into the Constitution, water into the conscience”

Last night the Parliament held the voting. With 64 votes in favour and none against, the 90-seat parliament added an article to the EU country’s constitution saying “everyone has the right to drinkable water”. The centre-right opposition Slovenian Democratic party (SDS) abstained from the vote saying the amendment was not necessary and only aimed at increasing public support. Slovenia is a mountainous, water-rich country with more than half its territory covered by forest. “Water resources represent a public good that is managed by the state. Water resources are primary and durably used to supply citizens with potable water and households with water and, in this sense, are not a market commodity,” the article reads.

The centre-left prime minister, Miro Cerar, had urged lawmakers to pass the bill saying the country of two million people should “protect water – the 21st century’s liquid gold – at the highest legal level”. “Slovenian water has very good quality and, because of its value, in the future it will certainly be the target of foreign countries and international corporations’ appetites.“As it will gradually become a more valuable commodity in the future, pressure over it will increase and we must not give in,” Cerar said.

Slovenia is the first European Union country to include the right to water in its constitution, although according to Rampedre (the online Permanent World Report on the Right to Water) 15 other countries across the world had already done so.

Trade Unions and Civil Society Welcome the Introduction of the Human Right to Water into the Constitution of Slovenia

Joint Press Release by EPSU, Food & Water Europe and European Water Movement*:

Last night the National Assembly of Slovenia passed an amendment to its Constitution to include a new article that recognizes the Human Right to Water. The amendment affirms water should be treated as a public good managed by the state, not as a commodity, and that drinking water must be supplied by the public sector in a non-for-profit basis. It is a great success for Slovenian activists and people.

“Citizens from across the EU and Europe have successfully mobilized to have the right to water and sanitation recognized as a human right – as decided by the United Nations – and have this put into EU law. The European Commission continues to ignore nearly two million voices of the first ever successful European Citizens Initiative. Commissioner Vella should listen to citizens and follow the Slovenian example as soon as possible,” said Jan Willem Goudriaan, EPSU General Secretary.

Water is a controversial topic in Slovenia, as foreign companies from the food and beverage industry are buying rights to a large amount of local water resources. The Slovenian government has raised concerns about the impacts of free trade agreements like CETA in its capacity to control and regulate these resources [1].

“Trade agreements and investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms can limit the ability of states to take back public control over water resources when foreign investors are involved, as it is the case in Slovenia. To guarantee the right to water and the control over this key resource, the European and the Slovenian Parliaments should reject CETA when it comes to a vote in the coming months,” said David Sánchez, Director of Food & Water Europe.

The amendment is the result of a citizens’ initiative that collected 51.000 signatures to propose a constitutional amendment [2].

“We welcome the introduction of the human right to water in the Slovenian constitution, as the great result of a citizens’ initiative. Now civil society should be vigilant to guarantee a democratic and transparent management of the integrated water cycle founded in the participation of citizens and workers,” said Jutta Schütz, speakperson at the European Water Movement.

• SAVEGREEKWATER is a member of the European Water Movement since 2012.

——

Notes

[1] The Slovenian government raised concerns about the ambiguity of terms like “commercial use of a water source” in CETA, how the agreement applies to existing water rights and the future ability of national governments to put limits on concessions already granted without being subject to claim under ICS, among others. The document can be found here
https://europeanwater.org/images/pdf/Slovenia-questions-on-Water_14-9-2016.pdf

[2] More information about this citizen’s initiative can be found at their website
https://voda.svoboda.si/

Contact:

Jutta Schütz, Speakperson, European Water Movement, +49 (0) 157 390 808 39 (mobile), juttaschuetz(at)gmx.de

David Sánchez, Director, Food & Water Europe, +32 (0) 2893 1045 (land), +32 (0) 485 842 604 (mobile), dsanchez(at)fweurope.org

Guillaume Durivaux, Policy officer, EPSU, +32 (0) 22501041, gdurivaux(at)epsu.org

PDF file of this press release
European Public Service Union – Food & Water Europe – European Water Movement

Here is the article:

THIS SUMMER, 81,000 homes in Pittsburgh received a worrisome letter about their water. The local utility “has found elevated levels of lead in tap water samples in some homes,” it said. Seventeen percent of samples had high levels of the metal, which can cause “serious health problems.”

The situation was bad enough to attract the attention of Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor who helped expose the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. “The levels in Pittsburgh are comparable to those reported in Flint,” he said in an interview with local TV station WPXI.

This was surprising because until this year, Pittsburgh’s lead levels had always been normal. So what happened?

First, a bit of background: In 2012, the city faced a dilemma. Though it had clean water, its century-old water system desperately needed repair. And its utility, Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, was plagued by administrative problems. Residents complained of bad customer service and unfair fees. And after a series of poor financial decisions in the 2000s, PWSA was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

Pittsburgh isn’t alone: Public utilities around the country are trying to make ends meet with dwindling public funding and increasingly outdated infrastructure. Many, like Pittsburgh, turn to private management companies to help out.

Pittsburgh’s utility called in Veolia, a Paris-based company that consults with utilities, promising “customized, cost-effective solutions that reflect best practices, environmental protection and a better quality of life.” Veolia consults or manages water, waste, and energy systems in 530 cities in North America, with recent contracts in New York City, New Orleans, and Washington, DC. Last year, the company, which operates in 68 countries, brought in about $27 billion in revenue.

Pittsburgh hired Veolia to manage day-to-day operations and provide an interim executive team, helping the utility run more efficiently and save precious public dollars. Under the terms of the contract, Veolia would keep roughly half of every dollar the utility saved under its guidance.

Under the leadership of Jim Good, a Veolia executive serving as interim director, PWSA began making sweeping changes—and they seemed to be working: Within a year, call waiting times for concerned customers dropped by 50 percent. Thanks to new fees for commercial buildings, new customers, and other assorted changes, the utility saved $2 million.

According to a 2013 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Veolia changed PWSA’s culture, too: Instead of traditional top-heavy management, Good checked in with employees over pizza and burgers every week. At a staff barbecue in 2012, “I told them that we were there to work with the employees as their partners,” he later told the Post-Gazette. “I provided assurances that there wouldn’t be any layoffs and that together we could achieve anything.”

But by the end of 2015, the utility had laid off or fired 23 people—including the safety and water quality managers, and the heads of finance and engineering, according to documents obtained through a Right-to-Know request. The PWSA laboratory staff, which was responsible for testing water quality throughout the 100,000-customer system, was cut in half. Stanley States, a water quality director with 36 years of experience at the utility (employees referred to him as “Dr. Water”) was transferred to an office-based job in the research department. Frustrated with the move, he retired.

Good maintains that not all staffing decisions were made by Veolia, which was in a consulting rather than management role when the layoffs occurred. Any suggested staffing changes had to be approved by the board, he said.

As the lab staff shrank, PWSA made major changes to its water treatment system. For decades, the city had been adding soda ash—a chemical similar to baking soda—to its water to prevent the pipes, many of which are lead, from corroding and leaching into the water. (Lack of corrosion controls caused lead to leach into the water in Flint.) In 2014, PWSA hastily replaced soda ash with another cheaper corrosion control treatment, caustic soda. Such a change typically requires a lengthy testing and authorization process with the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, but the DEP was never informed of the change. Nearly two years later, as news spread about the disaster in Flint, the utility switched back to soda ash.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto puts the blame for the treatment change squarely on Veolia, saying the company never informed the utility’s board or the city. Veolia denies responsibility for the change, saying it “did not and would not prioritize cost savings ahead of effective corrosion control methods or water quality.”

What is certain is that this spring, the state’s DEP cited the utility for breaking state law and ordered immediate lead testing.

Tests this summer—the first since 2013—found that the city’s lead levels had crept up and, for the first time on record, exceed federal standards. Seventeen percent of homes had levels above the Environmental Protection Agency’s action level of 15 parts per billion.

Many suspect that the change in water treatment chemicals led to the jump in lead levels; the city is currently conducting an internal investigation into the matter.

Stanley States, the former water quality director, believes the staff cuts almost certainly played a role. Lead levels first crept up in 2013 because of a previous change in treatment chemicals, though they didn’t exceed federal standards. But without a fully staffed lab, says States, the matter wasn’t addressed. “They cut our laboratory in half,” he said. “We would have been researching like crazy this lead corrosion problem to see how to correct it.”

But Pittsburgh citizens’ complaints about Pittsburgh’s water goes beyond quality—it’s also extraordinarily expensive. In 2013, a year after Veolia was hired, the water board approved a 20 percent rate increase over four years; by 2017, the average residential water bill will be $50 per month—triple the average Midwest cost, according to the Guardian.

Soon after, customers began complaining that their bills were coming erratically and appeared to charge for water residents hadn’t used. One vacant property owner was charged for using 132,000 gallons of water in one month—that’s about how much a family of four uses in a year. “You don’t know if it’s going to come in, whether it’s late or not, how much it will be, a Pittsburgh retiree told Truthout. “Then you get it and there’s a late charge.”

In May of 2015, a group of Pittsburgh customers filed a class-action lawsuit against the utility, Veolia North America Water, and the accounting company keeping track of PWSA bills, alleging that new water meter readers installed in 2013 “catastrophically failed and customers have received grossly inaccurate and at times outrageously high bills”—including increases of nearly 600 percent. “PWSA is acutely aware that the billings are wrong but do not hesitate for a moment to issue ‘shut off’ notices and then arbitrarily turn off water service,” read the complaint. PWSA and Veolia declined to respond to the allegations.

Last December, facing the class-action lawsuit, a state citation for changing corrosion controls, and mounting debt, Pittsburgh terminated its contract with Veolia. All told, PWSA had paid Veolia $11 million over the course of the contract.

Earlier this month, the utility announced it was suing the company. According to a press release, Veolia “grossly mismanaged PWSA’s operations, abused its positions of special trust and confidence, and misled and deceived PWSA as part of its efforts to maximize profits for itself to the unfair detriment of PWSA and its customers.”

Pittsburgh isn’t the first municipality to sue Veolia this year. In April, Massachusetts officials sued Veolia, which was managing Plymouth’s sewage treatment facility, for allowing 10 million gallons of untreated sewage to spill in and around the town’s harbor last winter.

Two months later, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette charged Veolia with fraud and negligence for failing to discover Flint’s enduring lead contamination problem after the city hired the company in 2015 to consult on water quality.

“Veolia stated that the water, quote, was safe,” Schuette told NPR. “Veolia also callously and fraudulently dismissed medical and health concerns by stating that, quote, some people may be sensitive to any water.”

In many cases, critics point to a pattern of Veolia saving utilities money through quick fixes—while ignoring bigger problems. In a phone interview, Kevin Acklin, the chief of staff for Pittsburgh’s Mayor Bill Peduto, pointed out that Veolia’s earnings are directly tied to the utility’s short-term savings. “They had the incentive under the contract to not make capital investments in property, planning, and equipment—to basically not fix the pipes when needed, to pass off those costs to other agencies, including the city and private homes,” he alleged. “Ultimately they were fiduciaries for the public authority, but they also served the business needs of a large multinational corporation.”

Veolia denies responsibility in both Plymouth and Flint, saying the leak in Plymouth came from a pipe failure that was out of its control, and that the contract in Flint was limited to looking at another chemical called TTHM.

In the case of Pittsburgh, Veolia maintains that PWSA’s board of directors retained control over the authority over the course of the three-year contract. “Veolia met its obligations and fulfilled the requirements of our contract in a fully transparent manner,” wrote a Veolia North America spokeswoman in an email. “We stand behind the work performed on behalf of PWSA.”

Yet Pittsburgh leaders can’t help but notice that the city’s utility is arguably even worse off than it was when it hired Veolia four years ago, with a depleted bank account—half of all earnings are directed to serving debt—and pipes that are still a century old. “The authority is in a pretty precarious financial situation right now, and I can’t sit here and point to anything tangible to show the positive legacy of the contract we had with Veolia,” says Acklin.

A former PWSA employee was more blunt about it. When asked how to advise utilities considering contracting with Veolia, he warned, “They will come in, rape your water company, and leave with money bags.”

The City Council of Tyrnavos, in its 13th meeting (04-10-2016) with its decision, no. 239/2016

DECIDES IN MAJORITY:

The City Council of Tyrnavos is against the commercialization of water and sanitation  services because this is not for the benefit of the public interest.

The council claims that:

-The water is a common that cannot be commercialized.

-The access to the drinking water and the quality of services of water supply and seweage are indisputable rights for all citizens, strongly linked to the right for life, hygiene and human dignity.

–EYDAP must remain a public organization to service the society and it must not be transformed to a means for the profit of private interests.

-Whenever there was an attempt to sell public services of water supplies to private interests ,there was a failure due to dramatic increases of prices and dramatic decrease of water quality and consequently, the return of the water services management to either the municipality or the state became unavoidable.

-Within the framework of the upcoming constitutional revision, the social control and the public sector management of the water should be legally ensured.

• The control of the services which are transferred in their entirety to the Superfund is now in the hands of an organization which is not pubic, according to its founding provisions.(1)
• The Greek governments cease to control the management of these services since they give it away to the Supervisory Board of the Superfund which, in practice, is controlled by Greece’s creditors.(2)
• Both major water services cease to have as object the one defined in their statute, meaning the provision of water and sanitation in Athens and Thessaloniki and they are instrumentalized in order to serve a foreign to their object purpose, the purpose of the Superfund.(3)
• The Greek Government has already approved the sell-off of 11% of EYDAP and 23% of EYATH and therefore private investors are going to enter the Board of both companies. If combined with a friendly to their interests management, these new players have the possibility to fully implement their agenda despite the fact that they possess only a minority of the stocks.(4)

For all the aforementioned reasons we announce today that our initiative in collaboration with other interested parties is proceeding according to the provision of the Greek Law to the necessary legal actions in order to annul the transfer of EYDAP and EYATH to the Superfund.

At the same time, we continue our campaign against water privatization so that our fellow citizens stay continuously informed with regard to its devastating consequences.(5)

Finally, on the premise that the EU Commission must stay neutral in the matter of private or public management of the water services, we demand the disclosure and publication of any correspondence or oral discussions’ minutes between the Greek Government and the Institutions regarding the transfer of EYDAP and EYATH to the Superfund.(6)

We would like to remind to everyone that the Greek citizens have repeatedly expressed their will in an official democratic way and in their vast majority stand against water privatization of any sort.(7) There can be no governance based on the Rule of Law which disrespects a country’s Supreme Court and there can be no democratic state which ignores the will of its People.

You can support this struggle by volunteering here.

SAVEGREEKWATER

(1) The two companies are privatized in violation of the Constitution as judged by the Supreme Court decision 1906/2014 as all their assets and subsidiaries are transferred to the Superfund which as it is noted in Art. 184 p4 L4389/2016 “does not belong to the public or broader public sector, in the way that each is defined.”

(2) Management and administration of the two companies will therefore be controlled, in practice, by the creditors, taking into account that: a) the Supervisory Board of the Super Fund consists of 5 members two of which are appointed by the creditors (with the consent of the Minister of Finance) and three from the Greek government (with the consent of the creditors) and that b) between the borrower Greek State and the creditors, there is no equal footing since the latter may impose what they want, as it has been repeatedly demonstrated in the past.We shall point out that the Fund’s Board of Directors (appointed by the Supervisors per art. 192.2a of L. 4389/2016) is entitled, among other issues, to execute contracts including such dealing with the supply and provision of services, as are those offered by EYDAP and EYATh. Per art. 194.8 of same Law the Meetings of the Board as well as the Minutes of such and any relevant documents are to be kept secret, despite the fact that such deal with the administration and/or the alienation of Public Property. Furthermore (per art. 202.2 of same Law) the Fund and all subsidiary companies (with the exception of MSF and HRADF) “…in order to proceed with the privatization of any of their assets (in our case the stock of EYDAP and EYATh) may sell, assign and/or in any other possible way transfer any and all properties and/or contractual or real rights (of EYDAP and EYATh) to any capital stock companies and then transfer their shares to any third person/legal entity”. Art. 202.3 of same Law allows the Fund and its subsidiaries (except MSF and HRADF) “…to lease any asset and assign any right of use as well as the administration of any asset … as they consider expedient”

(3) The two companies cease to be public utility agencies with the objective of providing uninterrupted and quality services of water and sanitation to the citizens of Athens and Thessaloniki. They are instrumentalized in a contradictory to their scope way, since they will become by law simple “assets” in EDHS’ portfolio and will serve the Super- Fund’s “specific scope”, as it is mentioned in article 185 para. 1: “The Company manages and leverages its assets in order to: a) contribute resources to implement the investment policy of the country and to proceed to investments that contribute to the enhancement of the development of the Greek economy and b) contribute to the fulfillment of financial obligations of the Greek Republic under Law 4336/2015 (a 94)”.

(4)Decision no33 of the Govermental Council of Economic Policy (Government Gazette 1472B/2016)

(5) In the last 15 years there have been at least 235 cases of water remunicipalisation in 37 countries, both in the global North and South, including high profile cases in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa.

(6) The agreement between the Greek government and its creditors to include EYDAP and EYATH in the new Super-Fund constituteS by both parties, a scandalous breach of the democratically expressed will of the people as this has been recorded at the Thessaloniki referendum on the 18th of May 2014 (where 98,03% of Thessalonians voted against the privatization of EYATh) but also after the successful completion of the ECI right2water in our country and at European level,  demanding the adoption of the human right to water by the EU and the protection of water services from liberalization. (During the procedure the official signatures by Greek citizens surpassed 32.000, when the threshold was 16.000, while in Europe in overall the signatures were more than 1.800.000, when the threshold for a successful ECI is 1.000.000.

(7)According to regulation EC1049/2001 (30 May 2001) with regard to the public access to documents of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council and Article 255(2) of the EC Treaty, in combination with the Article 345 of TFEU and Article 171 of Directive 2006/123/EC regarding the internal market services which dictates that the European Commission is bound to stay neutral in the matter of public or private management of the water services.

To a sad demonstration of the quality of the Rule of Law in our country, this draft is being promoted after the failed and persistent effort of domestic and foreign interests for the immediate and full privatization of water services in Greece and unfortunately results in similar consequences to home and other consumers who are now required to pay newly invented “costs” that bring us all face to face not only with the full commercialization of water services but also with that of our water as a resource.

Of course, this irrational and non-scientific attempt to put a “price tag to nature” by assigning “costs” to the preservation of ecosystems and water resources is not an invention of the Greek ministry but is a consistent pursuit of those multinational companies which use “eco-friendly” rhetoric in order to create an “ecosystems market” and even a “water market”, similar to that of Co2 emissions that we have by now evidenced how little it helped to reduce them.

These interests through their lobbyists have managed to “influence” the European Commission’s decisions and thus with the art. 9 of Directive 2000/60/EC, to which the national law is aligning with the MD in “consultation”, the “Full cost Recovery” term was inserted and it was made a guideline for implementation on all Water Services. Hence, in short, under this principle, the member states, when calculating the tariffs of water, they must take into account (as discussed in the second article of the MD under “consultation”) the financial cost, the environmental cost and the resource cost.

To decode the deception against citizens’ interests it is necessary to refer to the three definitions given to these concepts by its creators

A.The “financial cost” is defined as “the economic evaluation of the cost for all projects, infrastructure and processes necessary for services such as water provision, for the uses of Article 2 par. 1 MD. The financial costs include capital costs, operating costs, maintenance costs and management costs.

According to this new definition of financial costs:

1) Consumers are invited to pay once more for infrastructure projects which were paid for decades through a) taxation of generations of Greeks and Europeans (when it comes to infrastructure projects funded by European funds), b) loans that are now part of the unsustainable public debt and c) water bills and fixed fees.

2) They are also asked to pay for non-existent, under construction or shoddy infrastructure projects in regions of the province where in many cases, the competent authorities are unable to provide clean drinking water and sanitation networks do not even exist.

3) They are required to pay the profits of subcontractors who prey on the services sector as it is very clearly stated in Article 4, paragraph 2 bb) since in the definition of the “operating costs” it is included the “cost of concession contracts with third parties”. Just recently such an “innovative” contract was signed by EYDAP which paid a private company to “assess” the existing staff. Such a task was done in-house until today at no “cost” and at any rate it could also be improved in-house if it was necessary.

4) They are required to pay the cost of capital i.e. on the performance of alternative placements (No. 4 par.2.a.av). For example, If a water provider claims that it would earn more if the money given for network maintenance were invested in another activity will we have to pay the “alleged loss of its earnings”? Let us not say naively that water utilities by their constitution have a duty to invest only in infrastructure since only this year EYDAP «invested» € 20,000,000 in Attica Bank. Furthermore, according to the MD consumers must also pay for a secured “reasonable profit” of the private investors in EYATh and EYDAP (Annex 1 a2) without of course quantifying this flexible concept of ‘reasonable’, in a provision of true state “generosity” as if the private investors have any guarantee of profitability when investing in a company in the private sector. This year the dividends that EYDAP distributed were almost 22 million (profits 138 million). But apparently this amount is not “reasonable” and we should all chip in.

B.The “Environmental cost” is defined as “the economic evaluation of the deviation of water status from good status which is required for sustainable utilization of the water resources in accordance with the environmental objectives of Article 4 of Decree 51/2007. “

1) Scientific glory awaits any scientist who succeeds in defining the “cost per cubic meter ‘as the MD claims for the misty “rehabilitation works” (shouldn’t we first study what those might be?) to turn “sustainable” an aqueous stock or a water basin. We wait to see how many municipal water companies and how many municipalities served by EYDAP and EYATh will have zero environmental cost charges unless all regions of the country have no “sustainable” water reserves.

2) Even if science succeeds nothing gives us hope that these policies will. In this plan, no specific action is defined nor is it described as mandatory. The money raised from environmental charges will result in the notorious and largely inert “Green Fund” and from there who knows where and when, since there is no time provision for any rehabilitation works and the only reason why the author characterizes the fee as “contributory” is because otherwise it would blatantly violate the constitution.

3) Isn’t the environmental cost a mere revenue raising fee if we take into consideration a region of the country where the aquatic reserve restoration works would skyrocket such a fee if it was calculated precisely?

4) Quite interesting are two of the exemptions from the environmental charges: (a) users who, by applying appropriate management practices, help to maintain and / or improve the good status of water including wastewater reuse and c) regions with geomorphological particularities or extreme climatic conditions. Does this mean that any big enterprise which has political power because of the jobs they “create” and somehow presents evidence of “good management” will be cleared from these charges? Or even, any inventive politician able to characterize his election area as “geomorphologically particular” will he be able to exclude it from the charges?

5) Only outrageous can we characterize one other provision under which consumers are to pay for pollution of water bodies, even if they did not contribute to it (clause d of paragraph 2 of Art. 5 !!!) and even though this damage is never restored? It would be useful here to have an official answer by the Ministry on how many and which of the recorded cases of water pollution have been restored and who paid for it so far.

6) More generally is it logical from the very definition of this fee to allow for such an uneven burden of the citizens who have the misfortune to live in hydrologically deprived areas and have no competence on the water management in the problematic zone?

C. The “resource cost” is defined as “the economic evaluation of alternative uses of water” which is necessary if the Water System is used in excess of the rate of its natural replenishment.”

This new cost definition reminds us of Chile. There the large copper operators, who can afford to pay more, use water from local springs and rivers while residents end up drinking desalinated seawater, since only such is available at lower prices. Must we henceforth pay in the form of “resource cost” the difference of profit in order to prevent our water being used in another way which results in greater economic benefit?

A large industrial unit of water bottling for example which uses the ground water beyond the rate of natural replenishment will it just pay the “resource cost” and continue making profit while destroying the aqueous stock? How is this consistent with the assumed target of “rational use”?

Finally it is worth noting that from this new tariff calculation method are excluded all water services for energy use (no. 2 par.2.a of RM) and of course it is obvious why when one takes a look at how the energy sector operates in our country.

It is clear to everyone that the above provisions are aimed at nothing other than to give plausible excuses for increasing the price of water in perpetuity, in a similar manner as the electricity bills were doubled by the notorious “regulated charges”.

The flimsy argument that the price increase will lead to savings and rational use, in a miraculous way, is a gross misrepresentation of the economic reality since the ones with the economic capacity will comfortably continue paying their excessive consumption, while those who are economically weaker will have to measure their water consumption with the water dropper.

It is another form of indirect taxation, which severely threatens the human right to access to water and sanitation as it was defined by the UN.

Finally, the logic of full cost recovery is directly contrary to the nature of a public service, the nature of the water companies in Greece which is still valid and protected by the Constitution. Any profit, beyond a reasonable one for the continuation of the operation of the enterprises, which in favor of the public interest, must be reinvested for the maintenance and improvement of infrastructure and networks, is simply immoral and imposed on us who have no other option to have access to the most fundamental resource.

For all these reasons, we are completely opposed to the conversion of the common good of water to a product and we therefore ask for the complete withdrawal of the document under “consultation”.

SAVEGREEKWATER, Initiative for the non privatization of water in Greece

(Note: this text was sent to the Ministry of Environment and as a press release to the media in Greece)

COSIGNING ORGANIZATIONS

Participatory Unifying Movement of Employees & Retirees ofr a public EYDAP in the service of society

Employees Union EYATH (Thessaloniki Water Company)

Naturefriends Greece

Radical Ecology Network

Citizens’ Initiative for the Abolition of the Superfund of the grabbing of Public Property

SOSte to nero, Coordinating Group of Citizens and Organizations, Thessaloniki

Water Warriors, Thessaloniki

Open Solidarity Comittee  of Tinos island

ECO.POLIS Haidari,Athens

PERI.POL.O. Mani (Enviromental and Cultural Group of Mani)

Athens Initiative for a self organized field at Hellenikon

 Cholargos – Papagos Citizens Network

Article by David Sanchez of Food and Water Europe

Just one year ago we were arguing about how Spain was still resisting the last wave of water privatization, as a result of austerity policies and debt, seasoned with corruption scandals.

But as a result of the local and regional elections a year ago, the tide changed. As a reaction to the long-term crisis, attacks to public services and corruption in traditional parties, many citizen movements organized to run for the elections, with great success in Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Ferrol, Santiago, Cádiz, Coruña and Valencia, among others.

One of the key achievements of those movements was to introduce in the public sphere the debate on how to manage public services, like water. By the end of 2015, 57 percent of the population in Spain received their tap water from a private operator. One of the most worrying consequences is that more than 500,000 families receive water cut off warnings every year, according to data from the Spanish public water companies association.

Valladolid, a city of around 300,000 inhabitants and capital of the northwestern region of Castilla y León, took the first big move a few weeks ago. The local government announced that the city would recover public control of water management, 20 years after the privatization of Aguas de Valladolid, when the contract expires in July 2017. Aguas de Valladolid is now part of the AGBAR-Suez group.

The reasons for remunicipalization sound familiar: underinvestment in infrastructure, high tariffs and lack of democratic control over such an important resource, among others. These are the same problems that led more than 200 cities worldwide to take back control of the water systems in the last 15 years.

Remunicipalizing a public service is a complex process. Valladolid will create a public company that will hire the current 150 workers of Aguas de Valladolid so no expertise or jobs are lost. They announced investments of 178 million euros in the coming 15 years to renew the infrastructure. And even doing so, tariffs will increase less than a third compared to the period where management was private.

This is great news for the citizens of Valladolid, but also a strategic milestone for the whole country. Valladolid is the biggest Spanish city to ever carry out such a process, and will surely pave the way for many other cities that have announced similar intentions. At the European level, it is a great symbol of this global trend. Spain is one of the countries most severely hit by austerity and water poverty and an inspiration for the movements still resisting privatization, like citizens in Greece.

Remunicipalization is a huge step, but it is not enough. Public management needs to be transparent, democratic and participatory. It needs to guarantee the human right to water, as well as investments to secure a sustainable supply. It is fundamental to design a sustainable management plan to protect the ecology of natural water cycles and maintain the quality of water in rivers and aquifers. It’s also important for maintaining good working conditions for water company employees, which need to be fully integrated into the democratic decision-making process.

There are many challenges ahead, but no one said that challenging the neoliberal dogma would be easy. Exciting times!